• Workers quit their jobs in record numbers in 2021 and 2022 as ample job opportunities and higher pay lured them elsewhere.
• That Covid pandemic-era trend came to be known as the “great resignation.”
• The “quits rate” has steadily declined since peaking last year. In April 2023, it fell to its pre-pandemic average in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ JOLTS report.

During the past year, the rate at which Americans quit their jobs has steadily declined from a record high back to pre-pandemic levels — seeming to spell the end of the labor market trend that came to be known as the “great resignation,” labor economists said.

The “quits rate” fell to 2.4% in April, down from 2.5% the month prior and from a 3% peak in April 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

This rate is the share of monthly quits (i.e., voluntary departures by workers) relative to total employment. It’s now roughly on par with the monthly pre-pandemic average between 2.3% and 2.4% in 2019. Read More…